


Merlin's Beard!

by chaletian



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Camelot, F/M, Magic, Ministry of Magic, Post-Canon, but also not not a crossover with Merlin, not technically a crossover with Merlin, the evergreen question of cauldron bottom standardisation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-11
Updated: 2018-01-11
Packaged: 2019-03-03 14:08:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13342860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaletian/pseuds/chaletian
Summary: After a year of going out together, Josie was more or less accustomed to the fact that her boyfriend was a wizard. An actual, card-carrying wizard. And the card carrying wasn’t even metaphorical – Dean worked for the Ministry of (oh God) Magic, and had the ID to prove it.





	Merlin's Beard!

After a year of going out together, Josie was more or less accustomed to the fact that her boyfriend was a wizard. An actual, card-carrying wizard. And the card carrying wasn’t even metaphorical – Dean worked for the Ministry of (oh God) Magic, and had the ID to prove it. With a photo that showed Dean ducking his head and then looking sheepishly off to one side, which was equal parts adorable and freakish. But, hey, whatever, people could get used to anything, and Josie had got used to having a wizard boyfriend who’d gone to a wizard school and been involved in some kind of heavy duty wizard war and had a load of wizard friends, because under all that it was still Dean Thomas who’d grown up three doors down and who she’d known since nursery school. 

“Dean’s civil service,” she said nonchalantly if any Muggle asked (yep, she totally had the lingo down), which was all you ever needed to tell people about someone else’s job, because civil service was the perfectly acceptably dull job route for graduates and being that Josie was doing a post-grad in History at UCL, all her peers seem to live in nests in their respective libraries and were deeply uninterested in how Dean spent his working hours. 

Which was as well, because “Sodding cauldron bottoms,” was the kind of thing Dean would say as he appeared in the middle of their flat and flung his robes onto the sofa. Also, “Fight a bloody war, and we’re right back trying to standardise sodding cauldrons! Who even cares about cauldron bottoms? The only person I have ever heard showing the remotest interest in cauldron bottoms is Percy sodding Weasley, and you’d think if he were that bloody arsed, he could come and sort it out himself!” And although this kind of diatribe (variations of which could be heard over a period of nearly two months until a draft proposal on the subject got passed onto a committee) meant that Josie was 100% clued up on Dean’s views vis à vis cauldrons (largely negative), it was the kind of thing that might have been difficult to explain to, say, Julian Smithson (Byzantine empire) or Thea Greene (nineteenth century colonialism) or Yasmin Ali (early modern naval warfare). No such problem with Dean’s friends, who also worked for the Ministry or played this thing on broomsticks that she still hadn’t quite figured out (offside rule: not a problem; sniffles or snaffles or something: a total mystery) or were Aurors (apparently supercool magical police) or whatever. 

Anyway, all of that was largely irrelevant, really, because what it came down to was Josie and Dean living together in London, as they’d basically been promising to do since they were nine, even if there’d been the odd hiccup on the way (Luke Histon unashamedly behind the bike sheds... Ginny Potter, apparently...), both gainfully employed and having a pretty good time with life, despite cauldron bottoms and intransigent research. And one day, Josie looked up from the dining table where all her papers were spread out, and said, “It would be so cool to just know if Camelot had even existed.” 

She’d taken off her glasses and rubbed her eyes, and hadn’t really noticed what, if any, reaction Dean had had about this. In fact, it was only later that she noticed that she’d seen a lot more of Hermione Granger than usual, which was odd because Dean and Hermione weren’t particularly chummy, even if they both worked at the Ministry and Dean was mates with Hermione’s boyfriend Ron. 

But she didn’t notice, and when Dean said, “Let’s go to Stonehenge,” she’d shrugged and said OK, because weekend breaks with your boyfriend generally got the thumbs up and Stonehenge was always nice to visit. 

Stonehenge was the same as usual, and she tramped around the site, half wondering what Stonehenge _meant_ and half wondering what Dean was up to (definitely a weird mood), until Dean grabbed her arm and said, “Come on, I want to show you the bit we got on our school trip here,” and started pulling her towards an empty field, which was completely empty and boring and she really, really, _really_ didn’t see the point in going over there AT ALL and— 

“Oh. My.” 

“Yeah.” 

“God. Oh my God. Oh my fucking God!” She spun around in a circle, looking and looking and not really believing and oh _God_ there was a sign and a gift shop and... “Merlin’s beard!” 

Dean just grinned. “I know, right?” 

“No, _Merlin’s beard!_ ” She grabbed his arm. “That’s what Ron always says! I never... I can’t believe I didn’t... Oh my God! It’s real! It’s... Magic! Oh my God, of course it’s real!” 

“Are you going to have an aneurysm or something?” 

Josie ignored him, just didn’t see him, because there was a ruined castle on a mound a couple of hundred yards away, and it was obvious that were they were standing had been some kind of wall originally – probably enclosing a town – and a little distance away she could see Stonehenge, where they’d come from, and there was the gift shop and the sign... oh, the sign. Camelot.

**Author's Note:**

> Absolutely nonsense that I wrote a while ago and forgot about - possibly for good reason!


End file.
